Design, fabrication, and testing of silicon microgimbals for super-compact rigid disk drives

Author

Temesvary, Viktoria ; Wu, Shuyun ; Hsieh, Wen H. ; Tai, Yu-chung ; Miu, Denny K.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mech. Eng., California Univ., Los Angeles, CA, USA

Volume

4

Issue

1

fYear

1995

fDate

3/1/1995 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

18

Lastpage

27

Abstract

This paper documents results related to design optimization, fabrication process refinement, and micron-level static/dynamic testing of silicon micromachined microgimbals that have applications in super-compact computer disk drives as well as many other engineering applications of microstructures and microactuators requiring significant out-of-plane motions. The objective of the optimization effort is to increase the in-plane to out-of-plane stiffness ratio in order to maximize compliance and servo bandwidth and to increase the displacement to strain ratio to maximize the shock resistance of the microgimbals, while that of the process modification effort is to simplify in order to reduce manufacturing cost. The testing effort is to characterize both the static and dynamic performance using precision instrumentation in order to compare various prototype designs

Keywords

dynamic testing; hard discs; mechanical testing; micromachining; micromechanical devices; silicon; testing; Si; Si microgimbals; compliance; design optimization; displacement to strain ratio; fabrication; micromachined microgimbals; micron-level dynamic testing; micron-level static testing; servo bandwidth; shock resistance; stiffness ratio; supercompact rigid disk drives; Application software; Computer applications; Design engineering; Design optimization; Disk drives; Fabrication; Microactuators; Microstructure; Silicon; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Microelectromechanical Systems, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1057-7157

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/84.365366

Filename

365366